


the war was in color

by fuckyousledge



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 10:38:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6980977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckyousledge/pseuds/fuckyousledge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gene dreams in color about some raggedy ass marine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the war was in color

Sid swears - _swears_ \- he started seeing colors the second he touched Mary Houston's hand at lunch today.

Eugene calls him a liar, points out that one of their classmates is declaring their love for Mary every other day because she's the prettiest, nicest girl in class, but Sid keeps insisting it's true. When it's clear that Eugene still doesn't believe him, he starts rattling off all the different colors of objects around them, like that's going to prove it once and for all.

It doesn't, not really. Eugene might not be able to see colors the way people are supposed to - supposed you once you've found _the one_ , your soulmate, the person you're supposed to be with forever - but he can still see enough to say that's yellow, this is red. He has a hard time with blues and purples, sometimes, has to really stop and think before identifying them, but he knows his hair is red, his eyes are brown, and that Sidney Phillips has to be lying about Mary Houston.

Except he seems so _confident_ of it, and doesn't change his story days later, and when Gene asks his mother to confirm - because of course she can tell, with the way she smiles at his father and he smiles back at her - that the book Sid had been holding up is dark blue, not gray or purple, she tells him Sid's right. It's blue.

Eugene takes it back and stares at it. It still looks dark gray to him.

\---

The dreams start a few weeks later.

It's nothing remarkable, really. He's building a fence, or fixing one, hands working methodically to hold the nail in place before driving it into the wood, pounding away with the hammer. It's nothing he'd ever be allowed to do in real life, not with the way his mother fusses over him even if he's not as frail as he was, but what's really exceptional is how _bright_ everything is. The green of the grass looks _vivid_ in a way Gene's never seen before, and as simple as the image is, it stays with him long after he wakes up.

Sid reports he's been dreaming too, of the store they get Moon Pies and Cokes from before taking the truck out for a drive, and he _swears_ he saw Mary there last week with her friend Janie, and Gene can only roll his eyes. Mary's never mentioned dreaming about Sid's house, or their trip to the old Civil War site to look for belt buckles and bullets.

(His own dreams he keeps secret, more or less. They're a little strange, disconnected and unfamiliar, filled with people he's never met, some speaking a language - French? - he doesn't understand. Some aren't good dreams - Eugene doesn't mention to Sid or anyone that he mostly dreams about being hungry, a dull, pervasive ache that leaves you light headed, something he's never felt his whole waking life - but they're all so _bright_ that he can't help but pour over the memories, giving up on weaving them together in a way that really makes sense but treasuring them all the same.)

\---

At some point, Eugene realizes he's dreaming about a man.

Sid talks at length about Mary, sometimes. How pretty her hair is, her eyes, how nice her laugh is. It's nothing Gene doesn't know or agree with - Mary Houston is beautiful and funny and sweet, and Gene had been half in love with her when he was a kid, just like everyone else in Mobile - but he still finds himself getting quiet sometimes when Sid rambles on about her, when they're alone, of course. Eugene still can't decide if Mary's playing hard to get, if Sid's still lying about what kind of affect she has on him, or if Mary just doesn't know, if whatever happened to Sid just hasn't happened to her yet.

He has no idea what the person he's been dreaming about looks like, or what their laugh sounds like, but he knows one thing for sure - he's dreaming about a man. He dreams about odd jobs and poker games, ogling girls and tossing rocks into a murky bayou, and he knows he's probably not supposed to. He's never heard of anyone else dreaming about someone who's the same sex as them, and he has a feeling something's gone wrong, here. It makes him reluctant to talk about it, even if by now, he's addicted to the colors, even looks forward to having the dreams at night. Even if they're about a man, even if people might not understand if this ever happens, if they do meet and everything clicks together.

Sid talks about debutante balls, of knowing how Mary sets her hair in curlers before she goes to sleep, of family vacations to the seaside.

Gene's dreams couldn't be more different - building fences, paving roads, wading through waist high water filled with mud, debris and corpses. There'd been a hurricane a few days before that one, and something in him had been so desperately relieved to know whoever he was, this person he shouldn't be dreaming about, at least he's still alive.

\---

War is declared, Sid ships out, Gene still sees everything in not quite grayscale, and being a young guy in Mobile without plans or a reason to still be stateside gets harder and harder as the weeks after Pearl Harbor drag on. He wants nothing more to go, but his damned murmuring heart would have him labeled 4F in a heartbeat. Literally.

But even his dreams turn to warfare, and sometimes, he's not sure if the person he's been dreaming of is in boot camp being screamed at by NCOs and made to dig trenches and guard warehouses, or if he just so badly wants to be there, he's dreaming of it and adding in all the color himself.

Well, except he is sure. There are still some dreams about poker, and ogling women, and getting lost in the Australian suburbs, and none of that feels like something he'd want to do.

The man he's dreaming about is a marine.

It's not the only reason he becomes more and more insistent about going to war - he does, honestly, want to fight for his country, wants to be like Edward and Sid, wants to be able to look them in the eye when they get back instead of feeling like a coward - but it does help. He needs to be over there to serve his country, to stop the Japs from continuing their reign of terror over the Pacific, and maybe to meet the man he's been dreaming about for years by now. Just to see.

(In boot camp, he dreams about rain, relentless, miserable rain. Darkness, shouting, the terrifying racket of artillery and shellfire, paralyzing, animal fear under all of it.

He never wanted to know the exact color of arterial blood splashing over your face, staining your skin, seeping into your pores, even if he knows he's going to have to get used to it.

What happens if your soulmate dies before you meet them? What then?)

\---

Of course, there's no guarantee he's going to be assigned anywhere close to where this man is. The other man could be sent home, or wounded, or sick enough to spend the rest of the war in the hospital, or just in a completely different unit doing a completely different job, none the wiser to Eugene Sledge. Maybe their paths will never cross and Gene'll just have to keep looking.

Or maybe Gene will get killed before he has a chance to continue. Maybe he's not making it out of this war.

It turns out not to be an issue when he walks into a tent with Rob Oswalt and Bill Leyden on some miserable tropical shithole called Pavuvu and gets introduced to a dark haired, shirtless, mean looking marine with rotten sandals and gaping sores on his feet. Everything's suddenly a bit brighter, the color's a little more _popped_ , and Sledge thinks _Oh._

Snafu's pale blue eyes might actually be the best thing he's ever seen.


End file.
